Spend XP, get Feats?

[The Sigil]

I don't follow this forum much but the thought crossed my mind so I thought I'd bring it up. If it's been done before (and I imagine it has), I apologize.

With the incredible preponderance of Feats that have been published, it seems to me that characters' standard 7 Feats don't seem to "go as far" as they used to.

The other mechanic used to limit special abilities in 3e is XP. What are the thoughts of everyone here on spending XP to gain Feats (slows your level advancement down, but gives you more cool abilities - a trade-off to be sure)?

Do I have a hard-and-fast XP value to spend on Feats? No, not really, though I was thinking of something to the effect of 300 XP times the character's current level, with a maximum of one extra "XP-purchased" Feat per level. That means a character created with, say, 10,000 XP could be a 5th-level character or a 4th-level character who picked up 4 extra feats (one per level) but has only 7,000 XP.

Kind of similar to the 4th-level character with the Craft Magic Arms and Armor Feat that made himself a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power (or what have you). Since character abilities are largely XP-driven, this seems like a fair compromise - and still gives characters the ability to select from the thousands of published Feats without being intimidated by the thought that a poor selection will cause them to miss out on all these other cool things.

Not sure if the numbers balance well, but what do you think of the concept? Number balancing can be done later.

--The Sigil

 

[Crothian]

It's not a bad concept, but I'd limit it to only one feat per level. This way you don't have one character spend 3000xp over X sessions to get 10 feats (him being first level) and only be a couple levels behind.

 

[Limper]

I'd pay that cost at every level, no questions asked. This works out to 20 feats for 63000 xps.

So when the other fighters are level 23... you are only level 20 but you have a total of 39 feats (if human). More than worth it.

Not only should you put in a limit per level, but a total limit, and bump the cost up a bit.

If you'd allow a wish to bestow a feat, then 5000 xps per feat... moves doing so up a few levels. Also I'd limit the number of so gained feats to 1 per 4 or 5 levels.

You'd also have to add these feats to all your intellegent creatures ion order to avoid the PCs ruling the universe so to speak.

Or if your a very flexible DM try it out as stated and let us know what happens.... I'm curious.

 

[kenjib]

It sounds like it would break the CR/EL system. Such a character would be more powerful than their level represents, therefore the XP they gain for an encounter would not represent the challenge of that encounter. So, while they expend XP to get the feat, from that point on they would be getting more XP per encounter than they should, which would make some of that XP cost a moot point. It would also be more difficult to gauge what types of encounters you can throw at the party since it's harder to tell just how powerful the characters are. You could probably adjust to account for this somehow -- maybe by determining how many feats are worth an "effective level" for CR calculation. Just a thought.

 

[hong]

There was also a long thread in the Rules forum a few weeks back, on why it was a bad idea to let wish grant a feat.

If it's a bad idea to let a 17th level wizard burn 5000 XP on a feat, it would probably be a worse idea to let any random d00d do it.

Although, to be honest, I'm not yet convinced that letting wish grant feats subject to big restrictions is that bad an idea....

 

[jmucchiello]

I've been working on this privately to see how it would work and whether or not it would work in one of my publications. My basic premise is that you have a gateway feat which is like a style of combat or method of training. This feat grants access to a subset of feats which you may not train yourself to use. There are minimum level requirements and the XP cost varies by the feat's usefulness (IMO). I'm hoping to finish this book by the end of the year so I'm not going to go into more details here.

Nice to know at least one person is looking for such a system. Sound off here if you might be interested in playtesting but I can't guarentee when that may occur.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

 

[Crothian]

It depends on your players, the campaign and a bunch of other things. For some reason many people think that giving PCs a little extra power is a bad idea. It's not. You just need to keep it fair (don't allow one person to get 3 extra feats and no one else any). Personally I like it. It's good to have other ways for PCs to gain a little power without gaining levels and without finding magic items.

 

[Forrester]

Thought that as the unofficial unsponsored 4CTF flunky I should point out that the Hero Class in 4CTF prices a feat as 2 Hero Points; and the only real benefit offered by the Hero class is d4 hp, bad save progression, wizard BAB, and 8 hero points.

Meaning that a Feat should probably be worth, in XP terms, one-quarter to one-third of a level.

 

[jmucchiello]

Meaning that a Feat should probably be worth, in XP terms, one-quarter to one-third of a level.

Cool. My math worked out and I didn't even have to get 4CTF.

I should also note that there are gp costs in my system.

Joe

 

[Forrester]

Cool. My math worked out and I didn't even have to get 4CTF.

I should also note that there are gp costs in my system.

Joe

It's important to note that if you take a level of Hero, your progression actually slows, because you've leveled; in your system, if you buy a bunch of feats, you actually advance quicker than you should be advancing. In other words, kenjib's point -- a 4th level fighter with four extra feats is probably as powerful (at least) as a 5th level fighter, but he's advancing from 4th to 5th faster than he'd be going from 5th to 6th.

I think that you can cover this problem by just boosting the XP cost per feat a little bit; 350xp x level, maybe. That should help balance out the quicker advancement the feat-buying folks will get.

Better yet, just introduce 4CTF to your campaign; those who want to buy feats can just take a level of Hero . Unlike with feats, you can take a level of Hero and save up your Hero Points for later, if you want.

EDIT: If there are gold-piece costs as well, 300xlevel will probably work out just fine. 350x level + gold would probably be too steep.